The mechanisms underlying the variable BEF relationships in nature forests remains poorly understood. The authors investigate the role of tree-mycorrhizal interactions in shaping forest ecosystem functions across multiple levels. The study used a field BEF experiment to create gradients in species richness and different mycorrhizal communities to investigate the effects of tree species richness and mycorrhizal types on multitrophic ecosystem functions such as foliage damage, predation, and soil fauna feeding activity. The authors also investigated how tree stand characteristics mediated these effects. The key finding of this study is that both tree diversity and mycorrhizal association play a crucial role in determining multitrophic ecosystem functions. Considering tree diversity and mycorrhizal association is key to understanding multitrophic ecosystem functions and designing planted forests. Overall, the paper is also well-written, and usually clear and easy to follow. It will be a nice addition to the increasing literatures on the role of mycorrhizal fungi in mediating BEF relationships.

My primary concern is about the experiment design (MyDiv), which comprises ten tree species associated with either arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) or ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi to create gradients with only three species richness level (1, 2, 4 species) and three mycorrhizal types (AM, EcM and mixed). The mycorrhizal type seems to be highly correlated with the species richness level and the study only investigated a limited level of species richness. I wonder to know whether current findings on diversity effect will be biased and from my view, the authors should discuss the potential influence of this drawback.

Some specific comments:

1. Title, this study did not test the role of mycorrhizal fungi directly, I suggest change the title to “Tree diversity and mycorrhizal type co-determine multitrophic ecosystem functions”

2. change the key word “symbiotic soil fungi” to “mycorrhizal type”

3. L49, change “EcM fungi” to “EcM trees”

4. L140, several empirical studies have tested the role mycorrhizal type in mediating forest BEF relationships. Please update related references and revise the statement.

5.L143, references

1. L157-158, EcM-species protecting roots against pathogens is not mainly caused by acidifying the soil. E.g., Hartig net, the ECM mantle

2. L161, complementarity effects mainly refer to resource partitioning.

3. L170, tree biomass is usually treated as ecosystem functions. I suggest also test how mycorrhizal mediate the effects of tree species richness on it. So that the results of this experiment can be compared to other observational studies.

4. L209, how to select the tree, branch and leaves? Randomly? Please provide more details.

5. L240, Low et al. (2014)

6. L275, similar as point 8.

7. L283, no species-specific allometric equations? please provide more details to demonstrate the robustness of this approach.

8. L302, only one pooled sample for each species?

9. L322-324, whether include the interaction term for species richness and mycorrhizal type treatment? If not, why?

10. L349, marginal R2(explained variation of fixed effects)

11. L381, p=0.003?

12. Figure 1, the difference between treatment need to be assessed by multiple comparison and please provide more details on p adjustment.

13. Fig. 2 and 3, see point 17.

14. Fig. 4 was used to test the effects of species richness and mycorrhizal types on correlations between multitrophic ecosystem functions. The author failed to test whether the strength of correlations varied significant or not across species richness and mycorrhizal types.

15. L570, I don’t think this is the first time.

21.L590-591, which results?

1. L696, any reference for ecosystem functions?

2. L697, this might be due to the limited level of species richness

The authors have thoroughly addressed the reviewers' comments and have no additional remarks.

This is a revision of a manuscript that I reviewed previously. I liked the improvements to the manuscript compared with a previous version. I have no further comments.